Breathe; let go; relax; forgive. _ Mary Anne Radmacher

My (2¢) two cents…yet again.

So last week we had the Miss Uganda pageant and the beautiful Leah Kalanguka emerged the fairest of them all.

A couple of weeks ago I started my #TeamLeah campaign when I found out she was part of the contest. See, Leah is my friend Rhian’s sister….and when I found out she was contesting, my first reaction was, wait…how old is she???? The last time I saw her, she was a baby! After coming to and accepting the realisation that that’s how fast time had gone by and that means I’m old, I did what I love to do… supporting my own! 🙂

D-day came and I think I was too broke to go for the event but I had my prayer for a win at heart; and at 4am, Sunday morning…..my friend Belinda Belz told me ‘my person’ had won! I’m going to buy Belinda one of those sleep inducing thingies…I don’t remember the last time I was up at that time. 🙂

#TeamLeah had won. My beautiful girlie had done it!

And then all hell broke loose on social media! I had no idea how many vile, shallow minded, under-achievers there are out there! People got this one picture of her and made it go viral claiming and commenting about how ‘not beautiful’ she is! Rubbish!

I love photos and sometimes delete a million of them before I get ‘the one’. See that’s the opportunity she did not have at this point. There must have been a hundred camera flashes in front of her and photos taken of her blinking, yawning, smiling, cringing…whatever; but you see, she did not get the chance to decide what should be kept or deleted and these very not-so-kind people decided that one photo should be the photo to pass round.

I was mad! Oh yes, I gave a piece of my mind to anyone who for some reason didn’t know what team I was on and made a mistake of making rude remarks about Leah in my presence, my SM platforms…and yes even those WhatsApp forwards, I wasn’t going to have any nonsense.

Can we stop hating and appreciate and celebrate people who achieve more than we do???? I am certain that more than half the people who were rubbishing her haven’t achieved as much this entire year like she has in the last couple of weeks! People with probably no goals and ambition! I’m saying this because the people who have achieved more than Leah has in her young life, are out there busy working and pushing her on, encouraging her to aim higher and definitely have no time to bad mouth her! So the people calling her names are pretty much those with zero direction and probably unhappy with where they are in their lives that picking on someone else gives them some sort of fulfilment. Well, if it does give them satisfaction, I hope that satisfaction can pay the bills at the end of the day.

I am #TeamLeah …and everyone is entitled to whatever team they want to be on, in anything in life basically. Just don’t make someone else’s life miserable while at it ….focus that energy on making yourself and your team better!

Also, I realised a need so many people in this country have. The need to remain relevant. Jumping on every bandwagon …to make sure they ‘contribute’….even those that don’t add any value to them really. Having this kind of mind-set is what’s causing so much careless talk all over the place.

News flash: You do not always have to say something. Your contribution is not always needed.

“If you propose to speak, always ask yourself; is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.” – Buddha